Saturday, November 22, 2014

Guns Against Gangsters!! or Words Against Lovers!!!

Now here's some fine shootin':
 
Guns Against Gangsters was published in 1948 & 1949 by Novelty Press. It focused on, as the cover and title indicated, on using firearms to stop felons.

Interestingly, the early covers made sure to call out Toni Gayle, who was "a glamorous, beautiful model, cast by tragedy into the role of crime battler! Wherever criminals strike, look for Toni, armed with sharp wits and a plucky heart. She’s a match for the toughest killers of the underworld!” Her strip appeared in several other Novelty books, and I guess they wanted to use her popularity to pump up sales on this title--even though Toni never used guns!!

Ah, but her father--that's another story! Gregory Gale was badass police detective with a huge and famous gun collection--and he wasn't afraid to use them:



 That's one way to increase your collection...

And each issue had feature pages on the guns and accessories used in the stories:


And, true to its title, each issue featured people using guns against gangsters, whether rifles meant for big-game hunting...

...or duck hunters taking down perps...

Guns Against Gangsters only lasted 7 issues, and then was replaced by True-To-Life Romances, which picked up the same numbering. No more guns. But...

...they did try to set the record for most words on a comic book cover...yeesh, give me guns anytime!!

3 comments:

  1. "The finest gun can become a lethal weapon in the wrong hands." Um, isn't that the whole POINT of a gun?

    ReplyDelete
  2. No, the point of a gun is to shoot other guns out of criminals hands!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. "The Roaring 20's, which lasted almost ten years..."

    Well, either somebody was paid by the word there, or it stopped roarin' toward the end.

    ReplyDelete